Left Behind (or The Implications of Being an Anchor)
by Lady-Lyonnesse
Summary: 10 years ago Derek left Beacon Hills on a hunt, taking the group of supernatural teens with him. Only Lydia was left behind, in a town growing steadily more and more influenced by the demonic spirits attracted to it. Now, she finds herself having to deal with something far more real and troubling… the return of a war torn Stilinski. STYDIA one-shot with slight PYDIA.


**Title: Left Behind (or **_**The Implications of Being an Anchor**_**). **

**Rating: T**

**Summary: 10 years ago Derek left Beacon Hills on a hunt, taking the group of supernatural teens with him. Only Lydia was left behind, in a town growing steadily more and more influenced by the demonic spirits attracted to it. Now, she finds herself having to deal with something far more real and troubling… the return of a war torn Stilinski. STYDIA one-shot with slight PYDIA. **

Lydia Martin firmly stamps a heel into her gravel driveway as she hoists half of her body out of the car before reaching back in to the grab the groceries from the passenger seat. Usually the maid would've done this, but she had called in sick so it was left down to Lydia. She doesn't mind too much. As high maintenance as she is, she enjoys the occasional normality – even if in Beacon Hills, it is only a disguise.

She points the key over her shoulder and is rewarded with a satisfying click as it locks. Unlocking the front door is much less graceful as she fumbles with the key. Peter had moved them into the Hale mansion and while he had added a lot of embellishments, such as an extravagant driveway, the silver gates and the extra security measures in the surrounding forest, he'd insisted that everything concerning the house be restored to its original condition. Pre-fire, of course. Lydia understands the sentiment; however this also means that she now has a good five minutes struggling with a temperamental lock while balancing her groceries in the other hand. Eventually she gets the key in just the right position and, with a hefty shove, the great door opens. She stamps through, kicking it shut behind her.

Technically, she's Lydia Hale and has been for the past five years. Peter had suggested it in a more sentimental moment as they were watching old re-runs of _Two and a Half Men_. But Lydia prefers her old name. It reminds her of a time when she thought she'd marry the star athlete rather than a star sociopath. Sociopath come Mayor come Alpha. When the demons had started flocking in their hoards to the town, Peter Hale was hero who led his were-wolves in an army against them, who dealt with all the cover-up and subsequent demonic attacks. Lydia suspects the people must know his interest in them is nothing more than defending his territory and expanding his own power but they turn a blind eye. As long as he keeps the dark at bay, they'll do anything he says. It makes the cleaning up afterwards relatively easy.

Lydia begins to unpack the groceries onto the counter. She's not unhappy as Peter's wife. He's clever, he's fit and he's relatively good looking. When he's not in his wolf-form anyway. Honestly, she suspects that she has already bagged the safest place in Beacon Hills and that's in his bed. He surprises her as well. When she was left behind, he came looking for her. Though she was, understandably, hesitant at first, it appeared that he did seem to want to help her. Maybe first out of guilt, then lust and then genuine affection but whatever it was, she appreciates his interest in her and her wellbeing.

But she's not happy either. Difficult, Peter will often describe her as, '_Come on Lydia, stop being difficult_!'. Although it has kept her alive, she resents being seen as 'the beautiful banshee' all the time; a prize, a trophy and a weapon. She hates the looks she gets in the street, the way people are polite but carefully so and wince every time she opens her mouth. Everyone knows what a banshee's scream means. They're more afraid of her than they are of Peter. She feels trapped, her brilliant mind being ground down into nothing more than a well-oiled machine. They've never discussed the possibility of children.

A tap on the kitchen window makes Lydia look up sharply. Abandoning the half-unpacked food, she walks slowly towards the window and looks out. The trees seem empty and innocent, but Lydia is well aware of just how deceiving looks can be. She knows that she only need press a button and Peter's private security team will drop whatever they are doing and swarm through the woods, not stopping until they either catch something or Peter says so. Again there's a tap as a pebble comes flying, seemingly out of nowhere, and smacks the glass with such ferocity that Lydia's head automatically recoils. That decides it for her. Lydia Martin may be many things but she will not be provoked in her own home. She kicks off her boots and slips out the backdoor.

"Come out, come out," she sings softly as she wanders through the trees. "Where ever you are."

"As you wish," a voice growls in her ear, accompanied by the weight of a hand on her shoulder. Lydia isn't worried; she let them get this close. She has always been a flirt and danger is no exception to the rule. She rips the hand off her shoulder, twisting it round and away but suddenly a boot kicks her legs out from underneath her and she lands heavily on her back. The afternoon sun filtering through the trees blinds her as she opens her mouth to scream.

"Well. I always knew you were something." Lydia's scream dies in her throat.

"_Stiles_?" she demands. She recognises the words but the voice that speaks them and the hand that clasps her arm and roughly pulls her to her feet all seem vastly unfamiliar. She quickly moves away, out of range from further attacks and the sun's glare, and begins to circle the man. He lets her do it, standing with his arms half-raised and a faintly bemused expression on his face. "How did you get through the security?"

"Most of the traps are supernaturally triggered. Guess they wouldn't think anything human would be stupid enough to trespass on Mr and Mrs Hale's property." His last few words practically drip with unchecked venom but Lydia ignores it.

"How do I know you're who you say you are?" she asks.

"Scan me with your banshee waves, if you like," he shrugs. "I've got nothing to hide." Lydia buries down her annoyance, both at not having thought of that first and at having her powers described in such a flippant manner, and sends out a slight hum. It comes back to her with startling results and she slumps as all the aggression falls out of her.

"Stiles?" she breathes, weakly.

"Hi." In the last ten years, there have been few significant changes occurring to Lydia. She has filled out more across the chest and thighs, her skin is always an unearthly pale no matter how long she spends in the sun and her clothes and make-up are darker and more serious than they used to be. The most drastic change is her hair. It's shorter, the once rich colour now faded, with the occasional bleach white lock streaked through it. It's the only part of her which shows the effects of working so closely with death.

But all those changes pale in comparison to the transformation Stiles has apparently undergone. Scars riddle his exposed skin. There's one thick, ropey one which starts between his eyebrows and loops down to under his eye and another similar one which cuts halfway across his throat. He stands awkwardly, almost lopsidedly and his gaunt face and the fingers on his one exposed hand betray his mal-nourished state. His jeans are ripped, his boots are worn, his t-shirt is dirty and his jacket is one of Derek's old leather items. Yet, despite his skeletal appearance, he holds his head high, his jaw set and his eyes hard.

"Why are you…. _How_ are you….?" Lydia trails off, unable to reconcile the harshness of the man standing in front of her with the memory of the boy in her head.

"I came back for you," he states. "Not that it looks like it was worth the effort," he adds, bitterly, looking pointedly at the mansion in the backdrop.

"Are you serious?" Lydia scoffs, disbelievingly. "It's been _ten years_ Stiles! What did you expect to find?"

"I told you I was coming back for you." Stiles argues, glaring at her.

"Well funnily enough I stopped counting on that after the first _two _years of waiting on my doorstep every night." she replies, folding her arms and sticking her chin out in defiance. Stiles swears uncharacteristically and kicks out at a tree. Silence descends on them for a while, as both of them stand in stubborn impasse.

"How are the others?" Lydia asks eventually.

"Isaac and Alison eloped to France. The last I heard they were expecting a second child. I think they're happy," Stiles relates. Lydia nods, smiling slightly at the thought of her best friend happy and with a family. "No one knows where Deacon and Scott are. Greece possibly? It's been quiet for a good few months now. Derek's dead."

"I know," Stiles looks up at her quickly but Lydia stares blankly back at him. Both she and Peter had sensed the passing of Derek Hale. Her screams had mixed in with his howls.

"So that's us. How's the life of a Wailing Woman in Beacon Hills these days?" Stiles asks, drily.

"It's okay," Lydia shrugs, awkwardly. "I mean, there's an attack every other night and people are dying so quickly I don't know how we still have a town. But it's okay."

"And married life?"

"Irrelevant."

"Actually I think it's very relevant. He's dangerous."

"He keeps me safe."

"Keeps you safe?! He's a _were-wolf_!"

"That's not what you thought when your best friend started wolfing out all over school!" Lydia huffs, unsure why she's defending her husband with such vigour. Maybe this is what he means when he calls her 'difficult'.

"You have no idea of what I've seen, no idea of what they're capable of!" Stiles exclaims.

"Like what?" Lydia challenges him. "What is it exactly you think I haven't seen?" In response, Stiles pulls his other hand from out of his coat pocket and holds it up for her to see. In spite of herself, Lydia recoils. It is a hand, though one would be forgiven for mistaking it as something else. Its forefinger and ring finger have completely been torn away while the pinky hangs only by a thin veil of skin. Only the thumb and the middle finger are actually intact and that's the best that could be described of them. They've both lost their nails and are covered with sores, puckered skin and angry welts which continue up the rest of the skin on the hand. Not only did Stiles have to go through the pain of someone doing that to his hand, but it looks like he had to suffer it healing clumsily and in what seemed to be the most agonising way possible.

"Bucharest, last year." He says, by way of explanation.

"What happened to you, Stiles?" Lydia breathes, and he can tell that she's not solely referring to his hand. "Why did you leave?"

"They killed my dad… I had to…." He trails off. Lydia remembers the death of Sheriff Stilinski. In fact, after the band of teenagers had left the town on some hunting quest, she was probably the only one who remembered Sheriff Stilinski. She used to take him flowers every Sunday.

"I'm sorry, Stiles."

"Hmpf. It's alright for you. Evidently your life turned out pretty perfect, exactly how you wanted. House, husband, fancy car…"

"That's unfair," she protests. "My life is far from perfect! But you'd know that if you hadn't snuck away in the middle of the night."

"I left –"

"You left me Stiles!" she snaps, suddenly. "Out of everyone who left, everyone who went away, I never thought you…. _You_…!" she gestures wildly towards him, as if the sudden movement would help ease the inner conflict inside her. "You went off with Derek and you _left me here _with all the horrible things that came flooding to this place because of you and Scott and Alison. Except they didn't find _you_, Stiles – they found _me_!" she breaks off, tears dribbling down her face, creating dark trails down her pale cheeks. But she makes no effort to stop or hide her appearance. Instead, Lydia Martin, who doesn't even think of a six am milk dash unless she looks nothing short of flawless, allows her make-up to run smears across her face as she stares him directly in the eye.

"I left to protect you," Stiles answers, sounding almost frustrated that she can't see that.

"Well congratulations on that one," Lydia snorts.

"Don't you get it Lydia? Everything I've done, _everything_, since as long as I can remember, has never been without thinking about you first. I've considered you in _everything_. And there has not been a day where you haven't been somewhere in my mind, Lydia…." He trails off, exasperated. "Not that you once noticed –"

"Of course I noticed, Stiles!" she shrieks at him, his name reverberating with a hint of her banshee scream which sends a cold shiver down his spine. "_Of course_ I noticed, dammit! Don't you dare say that, don't you dare… not when you know….."

"Then… then, why didn't you… oh Lyds," Stiles reaches out his ruined hand; a hand which usually was so desperately covered from the world, which now trembled in the exposure to the freezing air and clumsily yet gently attempts to wipe away her tears, blurring her mascara across her face. Lydia doesn't flinch away as the dead and charred flesh scrapes across her skin, or even object to the further desecration of her meticulous look. "I love you, Lydia." He'd never told her. Not like this. Not directly. She has always known, of course. But when it came to a time when she began to feel like that could mean something, it had been too late. Many nights had passed where the only thought Lydia Martin had for comfort was that, through all the shit and gore, it would all be okay because Stiles Stilinski loved her. She had been his anchor long ago, when he had temporarily vacated this world to walk in another. Apparently that tie held both ways as, even with the influences of the dark Beacon Hills and Peter Hale fighting to bring out the serpent out of her, he was what her humanity clung to by its finger tips. She wondered if Deacon had known all along.

But now, even as her heart begins to shatter under the weight of it all, she realises; he isn't what she wants. What she wants is the young Stiles; the goofy, clumsy and embarrassingly geeky Stiles who still had so much hope and heart to give everyone. Not the savaged, war-hardened, cold man who stands before her.

Too late. She had been too late. And her Stiles, the Stiles who's ghostly hand had stroked her hair when she woke up screaming, who's phantom voice had guided her when she didn't know what to do, who's shadow fell over her when she needed someone to care, the Stiles she knew and remembered and loved…. now does not exist in this reality any more than he had done in her head.

"I'm sorry," she croaks, backing out of his reach. Stiles' hand hangs in the air for a few moments, fingers desperately reaching for their missing warmth, before he slowly buries it deep in his pocket. His expression is unreadable, hollow and vacant.

"It's fine," he mutters. "Looks like my fifteen year plan to make you fall in love with me failed completely."

"You could always add another five years?" Lydia suggests, momentarily encouraged as his old sense of humour glimpses the surface.

"I'm not really planning on being alive in the next five years," he says, harshly.

"Don't say that," she says. "You'll be…"

"Be what? _Fine_?" Stiles lets out a rough bark and Lydia balks as to how bleak the sound of his laughter is now, compared to what it had been. "No, no I won't." He gives her a meaningful look and Lydia's eyes widen and she fights to restrain the unbidden scream trembling in her throat. She couldn't know that his hand was only one piece in his mangled jigsaw of a body. She couldn't guess that both legs had been broken three different times. That he has silver pins in his back to prevent the spine from fragmenting. That he is missing a lot of his stomach after a group mauling and could only digest certain soft foods. That he is half blind in one eye or that there is not a limb without a scar on it. She couldn't know the price he had paid for fighting in were-wolf battles without the were-wolf powers. But she does.

"I guess I wouldn't have been much use as a protector even if you had taken me with you," he says, humourlessly.

"I never wanted you to protect me. I wanted to fight with you," Lydia tells him. The corners of Stiles' mouth twitch slightly, as if tempted into a boyish grin – but the smile never comes and he turns and begins to walk away, back into the woods.

"Don't!" Lydia calls, rushing after him, filled with sudden alarm. Stiles stops and looks back at her. "Don't…. don't…." she pauses, trying to find the words to fit her urgency. "Please don't stop loving me."

"What about Peter? Isn't his love enough for you?" Stiles demands.

"No," she says, shaking her head, unable to look at him.

"Of course it isn't, because Lydia Martin isn't satisfied with just one love, she has to cling to every scrap of love she can find!" Stiles shouts at her. "God, Lydia! Do you know how frustrating you are?" Lydia stands still, allowing it all to wash over her. Then suddenly, he laughs. "Lydia, there is literally nothing in this world which could make me stop loving you."

"Why not?"

"It keeps me human…. even if it doesn't keep me alive. I'd rather die knowing exactly who I am rather than losing myself." Lydia covers her mouth with a hand as she chokes back a sob, bowing her head so that her hair swings forward to cover her face. She feels a hand gently part it and glances up to see Stiles standing in front of her, looking at her exactly like he used to; with a mixture of shy admiration and longing. It is a look that she had first ignored and then felt completely unworthy of but now she basks in it, drinking up the sight of the old, familiar Stilinski.

"I heard things, Lydia," he murmurs, the fingers of his good hand idly playing with the red strands that framed her face. "About you. Your powers." He fixates on a strand of white, bleached even further in the contrast of her dark red. "I heard you don't just scream for death anymore. That you can sing to it as well." Lydia doesn't reply.

She'd never been interested in singing. Aside from singing along to the radio or in the shower, she didn't really attach any value to it. Then one day, a few years back, she'd been wandering the halls of Beacon Hills Hospital, or what was left of it. Peter had led his were-wolves on a siege of the place after something demonic had tried to establish a strong hold there. It had been long, it had been bloody and Lydia had screamed till she thought she would die of suffocation. Stepping carefully over limbs, both human and not, she'd almost missed the two small legs with rabbit slippers protruding from behind a chair in one of the waiting rooms. Lydia had thrown the chair aside to reveal a small child, clad in dinosaur pyjamas, clutching a small toy limply in his small hand. He was breathing but only barely. Lydia garnered what she needed to know with a short cry; he'd hidden behind the chair when the fighting started – only to be crushed by it as the two monsters battled. His lungs were punctured by his rib cage but it could be some time before he choked to death. Lydia had sat down beside him and slowly eased him into her arms. He looked up at her with stunned eyes, which couldn't comprehend what was happening but only knew it hurt. She started to sing to him, unsure of what exactly but trying to make it as soothing as she could. When Peter found her about half an hour later, she had a dead child in her arms and his death aria still on her lips.

She could lull a person into a peaceful, dreamless sleep from which they'd never awake or she could send them spiralling into an eternity of nightmares, tearing at themselves in torment as they went.

She feels Stiles' breath on her cheek. He isn't playing with her hair anymore, his attention fixated directly on her. He's close enough to kiss. As he bends his head, Lydia thinks he will and automatically half-tilts hers up to meet him. But the kiss doesn't come. Instead, he gently rests his forehead on hers and closes his eyes. He's cold. Colder than she ever expected someone alive could feel. Gently she reaches for his hands, first for the one hanging by his side and then for the dead one still tucked in his pocket, which he relinquishes to her after only a moment of hesitation. There they stand. In the quiet and the forest, silently letting everything they'd ever meant to say pass between each other.

"Sing for me?" he asks, suddenly. Lydia's eyes snap open.

"What?" she asks.

"Not now," Stiles clarifies, not moving, completely calm. "But one day. I want you to sing for me."

"Are you crazy?" she demands, trying to move away. "I'm not going to kill you Stiles!"

"Yes you are, Lydia!" Stiles replies, clutching her hands and holding her fast, in spite of her struggles. "Listen to me!"

"No! Let go of me!" Lydia yells, angrily.

"No, you have to understand!" Stiles says, desperately. "Please Lydia, you are what's kept me alive in the world, I need you to be the one to take me out of it!" Lydia stops struggling. She pauses before suddenly falling forward and burying her face in Stiles' jacket. It smells old and stale but she doesn't care. Stiles nearly steps backwards in surprise but catches himself and stands awkwardly, looking down at her. Silently, Lydia nods and instantly feels his body relax into hers – the iron vice like grip he held on her hands turning into a warm squeeze.

"Lydia!" Lydia jumps at the sound of Peter's voice, jerking her from out of the peace of Stiles' jacket and back into the harsh reality. Her hands fly to her make-up and her messy hair, automatically trying to adjust her dishevelled appearance. She looks back to the house in a panic as she hears the sound of the door opening but when she turns back to warn Stiles, he is gone. "Lydia, are you okay? What are you doing out here?"

"Nothing," she answers, as casually as she is able. Peter stops next to her and stares at her. He's in jeans and t-shirt and bare feet, with his hands in his pockets and hunching his shoulders against the chilly air.

"Were you talking to someone?" he asks.

"And just who would I be talking to?" Lydia wants to know, cocking an eyebrow. In response, Peter merely reaches out with his thumb and wipes a single mascara track away. Lydia doesn't give anything away, just looks at him, internally holding her breath and keeping her heart beat even. But somehow, miraculously, Peter merely sighs. Lydia knows that he knows she's lying. Five years of marriage and she still hasn't perfected the art of lying to her husband. The blessings of hyper sensitive senses. But for whatever reason, Peter chooses to ignore it.

"Come inside, it's cold," he says, putting an arm around her shoulder and gently but firmly leading her back into the house. Lydia allows herself to be lead, fighting the urge to look back into the darkness of the forest behind her.

**A/N: I know this is my first fanfiction in a while, but I was watching Teen Wolf and got inspired! I hope you all enjoyed it! **


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